Natalie Dahan
Photo: Avihu Shapira
Meir Dahan
Photo: Avihu Shapira
Husband goes missing, wife no longer ‘Agunah’
Widow of drowned man says ‘my soul won’t find peace until my children and I have a grave to visit’
The Rabbinical Court in Tiberias decided to remove the title of “Agunah” from Natalie Dahan, three and a half years after her husband drowned in the Sea of Galilee.
This decision set a precedent on the issue and was made despite many expert rabbis’ judgments.
The woman’s husband, Meir Dahan, and his fisherman friends Eli Marc, went on a fishing trip at the Sea of Galilee in March 2003. Rough weather conditions rocked the boat they were on, and the two drowned.
Eighteen months later, Marc’s body was found by a professional navy search party. Dahan’s body, however, was not found, and his wife Natalie remained “Agunah”. An “Agunah”, is a term used in Jewish law meaning "chained" to describe a woman bound in marriage by a husband who refuses to grant a divorce or who is missing and not proved dead.
Search party finds Eli Marc's body (Photo: Eitan Ovad)
Eitan Ovad, one of the supervisors of the search party, decided to help the “Agunah” and turned to Rabbi Avraham Dov Auerbach, an important Jewish law adjudicator on the issue of releasing “Agunot” (plural for “Agunah”).
Rabbi Auerbach studied the material and the documents which Ovad presented to him, as well as conducted conversations with professionals and policemen who were involved in the search.
“We explained to him that with the amount of oxygen found in the water and the situation that occurred, there wasn’t a reasonable chance that Meir was still alive. But the Rabbi immediately silenced me and said that according to the Halacha it was impossible,” Ovad explained.
Ovad and Dahan’s family tried to explain to the Rabbi that not acknowledging Dahan as a widow and her children as orphans was tantamount to a death sentence for the, but to no avail. “Only the Rabbinical court in Tiberius was on my side and for that I will be forever grateful,” Dahan said.
Several days ago, contrary to Rabbi Auerbach and several others’ judgments, the Presiding Judge of the Rabbinical Court in Tiberius, Rabbi Uriel Lavi, along with two other rabbinical judges, ruled Meir Dahan deceased with an unknown burial place, thereby releasing Natalie as an “Agunah”.
Following the Rabbinical Court’s ruling, Dahan and her family sat Shiva as a sign of mourning, although the courts decision did not give Dahan any rest. She explained that she wanted her children to have closure and asked for the search to be renewed for her late husband.
“If we had a grave to go to, everything would be much easier. On the one hand I’m happy and on the other hand my soul won’t find peace until my children and I have a grave to visit,” she told Ynet.
